Notes

Article from the New Zealand Herald
28 August 2010: As Auckland merges to create a supercity, the Herald looks back at how Auckland has changed over the years.

Birds were here first - millions of them. Before humans arrived the isthmus and offshore islands rang with bird song. Auckland's concrete, tarseal and grass were once a habitat of sub-tropical kauri forests,
shrublands, wetlands and rocky outcrops - an untouched bird paradise for 80 million years.

It took humans, and the predators they brought, just 800 years to decimate the ancient ecosystem.